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Home exchange guide, what is it and how does it work?
1. What is free home exchange?
2. How does it work?
3. Is it safe?
4. How long can we stay?
5. Who cleans the house after the visit?
6. Can I bring my pet(s)?
7. Is it child friendly?
8. Does it include my car?
9. Are we insured?
10. Can I exchange my small appartement too?
11. I don´t have an appartement or house to offer, how does Stay4free help?
1. What is free home exchange?
Basically it means you stay in someones house, flat or appartement for an agreed period of time, while they stay in yours, at no extra cost. For instance you go to New York for a week, to stay in Ben and Mary their house, while Ben and Mary stay at your place at the same time.
It´s a free place to stay for your holidays!
Click here to register and look inside.
2. How does it work?
After subscribing to the website, you can start searching for your ideal holiday destination. We don´t charge you any subscription or fee for use of the site.
This does not always have to be the typical place, like New York, Paris or London. Browse around the profiles and you might find some new ideas for places to visit.
Using the search engine you can initiate contact with other people.
It is very important that your own profile is a good and clear desciption of yourself, your home and the area you live in. If your profile only has one vague picture of your dog and a small description saying "I like to travel …" this will not be very inviting for other people to make contact. The better your profile looks, the more people will be interested in contacting you.
After you have made contact, you have the chance to get to know them better. It might be a good idea to call a few times using Skype with a webcam. This way the other people are not strangers anymore and you will feel more comfortable in letting them into your house.
It´s very important find out as much as you can about the other place, as well as the people. The more information you get, the better prepared you will be. Together you can finetune the details of your visits and plan your trip.
Usually you stay in your hosts house while they stay in yours at the same time, so you might never meet them in real live. If you don´t like that idea, you can organize one day of overlap, where the both of you can meet each other.
You can also organize for your neighbour or a friend to meet and give the key to your house to your guests. There is a wide variety of options here.
Once you are settled you can explore the area and enjoy your free holiday. When it´s time to go, be sure to leave the place exactly like you found it, maybe leave a little present or memory to your host.
Click here to register and look inside.
3. Is it safe?
Is the world a safe place? Depends on where you go, what you do and who you meet. You always have to be carefull and use your common sense like in everyday life.
If someone does not respond well or you have doubts, don´t invite them.
Or, you can ask Stayfree to do a backup check on members. We will verify someones profile and check references.
Click here to register and look inside.
4. How long can we stay?
Your typical vacation home exchange is usually one or two weeks. Although we have had people swap their places for one month or more.
Something which is also very popular is to exchange for the weekends, although this applies more to people living in the same region.
Since this is not fixed, it would be one of the first things to discuss with your possible exchange partners.
Click here to register and look inside.
5. Who cleans the house after the visit?
The golden rule is, leave the place exactly as you found it. So you might want to clean the house or get someone to do that for you. Sometimes people have their housekeeper that can be hired for a one time cleaning job.
Click here to register and look inside.
6. Can I bring my pet(s)?
Depends entirely on the people you are going to swap your house with. Some people have pets and might even request you to take care of them. In peoples profile you can see if pets are allowed or not.
Click here to register and look inside.
7. Is it child friendly?
Some houses and neighbourhoods might be more child friendly than others. In the profiles you can see how many people someone lives with. So this could be an indication of a big or small house.
But, this is not something we have put up in the profiles specifically, so this would be a topic to discuss with your exchange partner.
Click here to register and look inside.
8. Does it include my car?
If you have a car available and would like to use your exchange partners car, it is possible to indicate this. You are never obligated to give someone your car of course. But it might come in handy if the other party is up for it also.
Click here to register and look inside.
9. Are we insured?
There is no special insurance that applies to an international home exchange, so all basic rules apply. If you break something, you have to fix it. Your own travel insurance might cover this, but basically you would have to take care of repairs if you broke something.
Click here to register and look inside.
10. Can I exchange my small appartement too?
We have noticed that some people from second or third world countries are a bit shy about their homes. They think they cannot enter the house exchange market with their place because it is of another level than the first world, like USA or Europe.
But you might be wrong there. A lot of people from the first world are very interested in the "real" life of developing countries. They would be very eager to see and experience how people in second or third world countries live.
They might be very interested in swapping their place to be able to live the life of a local in a completely different part of the world.
So don´t be shy, put up a nice and clear description of your place including pictures and try your luck.
Click here to register and look inside.
11. I don´t have an appartement or house to offer, how does Stay4free help?
Some people offer accommodation to travellers without charging them anything. They are in the category HE+ or FA+. So, if you are searching you can click the checkbox behind "I am looking for … free accommodation", and it will only show you people that might be able to receive you.
Mind you, they are not obligated to have you, so be nice… :)
And make sure your own profile is a clear and good description of yourself. The better your profile looks, to more chances you have that people invite you.
Click here to register and look inside.
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